Digital declutter: Why it's time to Marie Kondo your camera roll

If you have countless folders of photos and documents on your digital devices, it might be time for a spring clean. Photo / Getty Images

We all have camera rolls packed full of memories. Desktops filled with random folders labelled "Europe trip 2018" (too soon?) and "uni notes English lit semester 2" (just me?).

Can't for the life of you locate your car insurance information or the photos from your sister's 21st birthday? If like me, as soon as you look through your phone storage or open your laptop, you find yourself overwhelmed with information in all the wrong places, it might be time for a digital declutter.

You've heard of Marie Kondo. Gemma Quinn is her digital equivalent.

Australia's first KonMari consultant, Quinn helps her clients learn the art of tidying up - but her expertise extends into the digital realm.

"Before I got into this I thought to myself, I'm tidy - why is this method different? Why do people love it so much?" she tells the Herald.

But she quickly realised that even though she was a master at physical organisation, her digital life was in need of a spring clean too.

"I was holding on to things that I didn't realise. Even though the physical manifestation of my own home was very neat, that wasn't the point, because there were all of these things I couldn't see," she says.

The KonMari method is all about holding each item you own and asking yourself whether it brings you joy. If it doesn't, you throw it out - and there's no reason you can't do that with your digital belongings as well.

"It's about identifying your ideal life and what brings you joy. This is really important with photos and documents - how does this help me live my ideal life and bring me happiness?" Quinn explains.

"It asks you to question yourself at a deeper level and once you understand that, you're able to keep whatever it might be with conviction, or you're able to let it go with gratitude.

"Even if it's a document - it sounds funny, I know - everything you have then has a reason and is connected to your ideal life and helps support you to get there."

So, what does digital tidying actually look like? Quinn breaks it down into two main categories of things we keep: documents and photos.

Australian KonMari consultant Gemma Quinn has some tips for living your best digital life. Photo / Supplied

Documents

The key to organising your digital life is simplicity, Quinn says - and it starts with getting rid of documents you don't need.

"If you have huge amounts of folders, you need to organise them. The first step is to let go of things you don't need, then organise what you have left."

She goes on to explain that you only need three folders on your devices: current projects, records and your saved work.

"Your current project might be a holiday, it might be Christmas. Something you're actively working on. Save those to a current projects folder rather than saving things on to your desktop and them becoming a mess. It's a great way to work. And when you see that folder, joy check: hold something up and ask, does that piece of work spark joy for me?" Quinn suggests.

Meanwhile, deciding which documents to keep as records comes down to risk management.

"Think of academic transcripts, birth certificates, mortgage contracts. You have to ask yourself, am I legally required to keep this? What would happen if I didn't have this? It's about weighing up the risk."

If the answer is "it probably wouldn't matter", then it's a lot easier to let it go.

"If you're keeping a recipe, think, am I really going to use that and commit to making it? With any kind of written or printed document, relate it back to your ideal life.

"I would challenge you to try to find those things and understand why you may or may not want to keep a document. Keep them within those three big folders and keep it simple."

When it comes to saved work like completed projects or old university research, relevance is key, she says.

"Is this current research? Something like pure maths isn't going to change, but if you're a medical professional and keeping a document from 1975 on whooping cough or cancer, are you going to trust it?"

Sometimes the nostalgic element is the only reason we keep a piece of information or a document. Who doesn't keep their old school notebooks and photo albums to show their kids one day? But Quinn stresses that it's important to be selective about which memories we hold on to if they're taking up space on our devices.

Looking back through old photos triggers happy memories - but we can curate which ones we really need to keep. Photo / Getty Images

Photos

These memories include photos, she says.

"To me, photos are a physical thing, but what they really represent are memories. Memories are the things that fill our souls the most."

That's because, as Quinn explains, memories trigger our emotions. It's still possible to curate these. She recommends storing them by year and limiting yourself to keeping five to ten photos per event.

"Instead of keeping hundreds of thousands of photos, if you have one original photo that makes your heart melt, keep that."

Research done by GoPro shows the average person loses 11 precious memories each year, often due to running out of storage space.

"The research is clearly telling us that we know a keeper when we see it but that losing track of the shot is very easy to do," Quinn says.

Making use of technology such as GoPro's Quik app ensures you won't lose any of those memories - it allows you to add photos to a private feed and share existing content from anywhere on your phone, creating your own personal highlight reel.

Quinn shares that she always goes through her camera roll when she's on a plane - not only is it an uninterrupted chunk of free time, but being in the air always heightens our emotions (pun intended) and triggers an instant reaction when we look at a photo.

"Set aside 1.5 hour blocks of time and do as much as you can. To avoid getting overwhelmed, do it in manageable chunks."

When it comes to organising original photos, you have to ask yourself the joy question once again. And sometimes photos remind us of those really hard moments, Quinn notes.

"Be honest with yourself with the answer. If you're not ready to let go of photos associated with a certain memory, put them to one side and do those last. It gets easier."

Regularly curating your photos is also good for your mental health.

"When we have everything organised, we have a sense of calmness. You're taking away that mental clutter," Quinn says.

"Our brains go through that cathartic process that leads to clarity and calm. It's such a lovely process."

It's that clarity and calm we all crave in what's becoming a more and more fast-paced digital world. So next time you open your cluttered laptop, why not think about deleting a thing or two?